Comment on Open Thread March 7 - March 13, 2016

Fri, 11 Mar 2016 00:17:24 GMT

At least one of us. (He might hold some intermediate view of himself that would surprise us both.)

Here is an article he wrote. Some brief quotations, which seem to me like things he wouldn't have written if he numbered himself among the scientists:

there is great diversity in terminology and underlying assumptions about what climate is and how scholars analyze it, [...] about environmental historians’ responsibility to engage the general public and policymakers, about whether historians use or criticize contemporary natural sciences, and about our capacity and willingness to collaborate with scientists, engineers, and other disciplines even beyond the academy.

("Our capacity and willingness to collaborate with scientists".)

This is why we need more environmental historians thinking about present-day climate change—and why collaboration among historians, scientists, and modelers is essential, and doable.

(Not, e.g., "why we need more people like me who are both scientists and historians", but collaboration between these groups. The general thrust of the paper is that scientists need to listen to environmental historians, who have useful and distinctive things to contribute.)

I can't find anything Carey's written, or anything written about Carey, that suggests to me that he would call himself a scientist.[1] Why do you think he would? (Is it, e.g., just out of a sense that science is high-status and therefore people doing anything with any connection to science will tend to call themselves scientists?)

[1] ... Except for a passing mention of "social scientists" in the paper I linked above, which may indicate that he reckons historians "social scientists". If he defines "scientists" so broadly as to include historians generally then meh, maybe he would call himself a scientist, but he would probably also willingly agree that he isn't what-most-people-call-scientists. My guess is still that he would answer "no" to "are you a scientist?", though as I say he might want to hedge.

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